


It's Chow Time!!

by unacaritafeliz



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, NHL Player Chris "Chowder" Chow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 11:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20974832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unacaritafeliz/pseuds/unacaritafeliz
Summary: The San José Sharks have been dominating the Western Conference this year, with an especially strong performance from their new goaltender, and Calder Memorial Trophy frontrunner, Chris Chow. We sit down with Chris, better known as Chowder to his teammates, to talk hockey, friendship, and his weird goalie superstitions.[an interview with NHL goalie Chris Chow]





	It's Chow Time!!

** _It's Chow Time!! _ **

_The San José Sharks have been dominating the Western Conference this year, with an especially strong performance from their new goaltender, and Calder Memorial Trophy frontrunner, Chris Chow. We sit down with Chris, better known as Chowder to his teammates, to talk hockey, friendship, and his weird goalie superstitions. _

_[[Image: San José Sharks goaltender, Chris Chow, wearing his full goalie gear on the ice, ferociously batting a puck away from the net.]]_

**Firstly, congratulations on such a strong start to your very first NHL season! I don't think you could've asked for a better debut!**

Thank you so much! Honestly, the start of this season has felt like a dream! To be playing hockey, professionally, for a team like the Sharks, and actually be doing well is something I kind of always imagined doing but never really thought I'd actually get to do. It's really been amazing!

**I understand that playing for the Sharks has been something of a life goal for you?**

My parents are big hockey fans and California natives, so I've been skating almost as long as I've been walking and supporting the Sharks for even longer than that. I actually wore so much Sharks merch in college that my teammates used to joke that I came out of the womb wearing a Shark's onesie! They're... probably not wrong.

**Oh, wow! So, I guess it was easy for you to choose which team to sign with?**

It was actually really hard! It was very important to me that I joined a team that was a good cultural fit for me. I visited a few teams and I really connected with the Sharks and the Falconers - both teams are full of great people, and they're both doing a lot for diversity in hockey. Choosing which team to sign with was a very tough decision, but I guess my love of the Sharks eventually won out.

**You've really stepped up as a champion of diversity in the NHL, even as a rookie. It's not something we see very often.**

I never really considered doing anything else, to be honest. I always want to be as authentically myself as I can, and hockey is a very… sort of macho, heteronormative sport, and it's also a very white sport, and as a pansexual Asian American living with a chronic illness, I want to be the kind of role-model I wish I had as a young kid watching the NHL. I really want to show the hockey community that people that look like me and think like me or have physical restrictions can play hockey too.

**You just mentioned a chronic illness, can you elaborate on that?**

I have diabetes. It usually doesn't affect my hockey too much, but I do have to be really careful about monitoring my sugar levels when I'm on the ice. During the final match in my freshman year of college I got so into the game that I forgot about it and I fainted on the ice! But I'm a lot better about checking my levels during games now. The team is really good about it too - Jumbo (Sharks center Joe Thornton) even made buying sugary snacks for me part of his pre-game ritual! 

**And do you have any pre-game rituals or hockey superstitions? I know goalies usually have some of the weirder ones!**

Oh man, that's such a loaded question! Well, my personal pre-game ritual is to nap on a couch. It specifically has to be a couch, not a bed. My old captain Bitty (TV chef Eric Bittle) used to get so mad at me back in college because I'd nap on our grotty old couch instead of sleeping in my bed which was literally two rooms away. But the couch is a very important detail of the ritual. Beds just aren't the same.

As for superstitions, I... Well, it's kind of weird, but I refuse to touch pucks off the ice.

**You don't touch pucks? But you're a goalie!**

I know! I think that's why I want them as far away from me as possible! I don't have an issue with touching them during games or practice, but I just hate them so much! My teammates chirp me about it non-stop but I can't help it - pucks are just so weird.

**Speaking of your teammates, Providence Falconer Jack Zimmermann was your captain during your first year of college. What was it like playing with Jack?**

Playing with Jack was an amazing experience. I know he doesn't really seem like it in his interviews, but Jack's such a good and kind and funny person and he really cares so much about his friends. He taught me so much about not only hockey, but about being a kind and considerate captain and friend! I'm really do consider Jack as one of my closest friends - I could gush about him for hours!

**Would you say Jack's one of the reasons you're one of the only goalies to ever captain a NCAA team?**

Honestly, the reason I captained the team because my teammates are all weirdos who couldn't understand why having a goalie as a captain was a bad idea! But I was really touched my team trusted and respected me so much that they gave me the C and I was really lucky to have the support of Jack and the rest of my old captains to really help me do my best! And it really helped that my on-ice captains were also my best friends, so I could safely trust them to make the right calls while I was stuck back in the net.

**And what do you think is going to happen when the Falconers meet the Sharks later this year?**

Oh, we're absolutely going to crush them. Zimmermann isn't going to get single puck past me.

**That's so brutal! It's the first time in this interview I've seen even a glimpse of the "Monster On the Ice" your captain talks about. Apart from this you've seemed so nice!**

Oh my god - does he really call me that?! He's not wrong, but oh my god! I promise I'm a very nice person in real life! I'm just very competitive when it comes to hockey and sometimes I get a little too much into the game and come off a little meanly but I promise don't mean it. I just don't want people or pucks near my goal! Oh my god, I can't believe he calls me that!

**Well, if being a little mean is what it takes to win games...**

Oh, no! That's definitely not what I wanted people to take away from this interview.

**What did you want people to take away from this interview?**

That you should be nice and accepting and not mean at all to anyone either! And also that you should support the Sharks because we're 'swawesome!

_The San José Sharks take on the Anaheim Ducks at SAP Arena this Saturday. Tickets are on sale now._

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BEST BOY IN THE WORLD CHRIS FRANKLIN MOTHERFUCKING CHOW!
> 
> As with everything, Chowder deserves better than this fic but it's the fic I wrote and the fic I shall give him regardless.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] It's Chow Time!!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26934817) by [rhythmia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhythmia/pseuds/rhythmia)


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